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Dallas family's lawsuit says harnesses may have trapped victims in fatal New York helicopter crash

A helicopter is hoisted by crane from the East River onto a barge, Monday, March 12, 2018, in New York. The pilot was able to escape the Sunday night crash after the aircraft flipped upside down in the water killing several passengers, officials said. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)(Mark Lennihan / AP)

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in New York state court says Trevor Cadigan was unable to escape from his seat on the Eurocopter AS350B2 because of the harness he was cinched into.

Cadigan, along with his friend Dallas Fire-Rescue firefighter Brian McDaniel and three other people, drowned when the charter helicopter capsized in the river, medical examiners said.

The passengers had been on board for a private photo shoot. Only the pilot survived.

The way passengers were harnessed, with a release mechanism in the back, there "was just no prospect of safely escaping," said Gary C. Robb, a lawyer for Cadigan's parents.

"Hanging upside-down in frigid water — stunned by the helicopter crash, tightly harnessed, release inaccessible, with no advanced training — is a death trap," Robb said.

The lawsuit, which names Liberty Helicopters, the pilot and others, seeks unspecified damages, but Robb says the family mainly wants to end open-door flights for taking aerial photos.

Liberty Helicopters did not respond to requests for comment and referred inquiries to federal authorities.

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The lawsuit alleges Liberty Helicopters is vicariously liable for the actions of the pilot, Richard Vance, and states that he was "negligent and careless in failing to take reasonable steps to extricate the passengers ... after he secured his own release."

The National Transportation Safety Board said the aircraft had been flying about 2,000 feet over New York on a scheduled 30-minute flight when the pilot sent out a mayday call saying his engine had failed.

After the helicopter made a hard landing in the 40-degree water, it tipped over and was carried upside-down in the fast river current while police and fire department divers tried to free the passengers from their safety harnesses. Two victims died in the water. Three more were pronounced dead after several hours of treatment at a hospital.

NTSB investigators said electronic devices recovered from the helicopter or from the victims, including the GoPro camera and data recorder, were being sent to laboratories in Washington.

Officials also were examining the restraint systems.

A written statement from the FAA, which certifies aircraft and their operators, said the agency is "giving urgent attention to the use of harnesses specifically for aerial photography flights."

The group was on a flight from Kearny, N.J., that was booked by FlyNYON, which advertises doors-off helicopter rides. NYONAir is the parent company of FlyNYON, both of which are also named in the lawsuit.

Passengers' safety harnesses on open-door photo tours are different from pilots' seat belts, said helicopter pilot Bill Richards, of the aerial photography company New York Film Flyers.

"The pilot survived because the pilot has a single-point release on his seatbelt. It's sitting right in front of him right in the middle," Richards said. "All he has to do is pull up one lever and the seatbelt comes apart, and he's practiced getting in and out of the aircraft hundreds and hundreds of times and knows exactly how to do that."

Harnesses made to keep overzealous passengers from falling out of an aircraft's open door, he said, are much harder to unstrap. Passengers get a knife they can use to cut themselves free, but that doesn't mean the passengers know how to use them.

The lawsuit alleges that the policy of providing a knife for passengers to cut through their harnesses and free themselves is "grossly negligent and reckless." It also refers to the harnesses secured from the back with a carabiner as a "death trap" because they do not permit passengers to activate the release mechanisms on their own.

1/5A casket of fallen Dallas firefighter Brian McDaniel is carried into the Sparkman-Crane Funeral Home by members of the Dallas Fire Station 36 as family members and friends grieve in the background in Dallas on March 13, 2018.(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer)

2/5Lt. Ray Smith walks by a memorial before a news conference at Dallas Fire-Rescue Station 36 in Dallas on Tuesday, March 13, 2018. Dallas Firefighter Brian McDaniel died in the helicopter crash on Sunday in New York. He would have been working his shift Tuesday.(Jae S. Lee / Staff Photographer)

3/5In this image made from an undated video released by WFAA in Dallas, Trevor Cadigan, a former WFAA intern and son of WFAA production manager Jerry Cadigan, is seen. Cadigan was among five passengers killed Sunday when a helicopter plunged into New York City's East River, with the pilot reporting the engine had failed. (The Associated Press)

4/5This undated photo provided by Dallas Fire-Rescue shows Officer Brian McDaniel, who died in a helicopter crash Sunday evening, March 11, 2018, while on vacation in New York. McDaniel and several other passengers who died in the sightseeing helicopter were strapped in with tight safety harnesses when the aircraft plunged into New York City's East River after the pilot was heard on an emergency radio saying the engine had failed. (Dallas Fire-Rescue via AP)(AP)

New York-based aviation attorney Brian Alexander said the harnesses "may not be a problem," but it might be crucial to know how thoroughly passengers are briefed about getting out in an emergency.

Cadigan, 26, was a Southern Methodist University graduate who formerly interned at WFAA-TV (Channel 8) and had also written for GuideLive. He had recently started working at Business Insider.

McDaniels was visiting Cadigan in New York City. The 26-year-old firefighter knew Cadigan from Bishop Lynch High School.

McDaniels had been assigned to to Fire Station 36 in West Dallas and worked for Dallas Fire-Rescue since May 2016. His body was brought back to Dallas on Tuesday.

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The three others killed in the crash include Carla Vallejos Blanco, 29, of Corrientes, Argentina; Daniel Thompson, 34; and Tristan Hill, 29.

Liberty has been involved in at least five accidents or other incidents in the last 10 years, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. Three incidents ended in safe landings after, for example, one chopper clipped another while taking off from a helipad. But an August 2009 collision over the Hudson River between a Liberty chopper and a small private plane killed nine people.

The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.

Claire Cardona, Breaking News Producer. Claire joined The Dallas Morning News as an intern in 2012. She now writes about crime, other breaking news and the Dallas Zoo. She grew up in New Orleans and graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin.